Homily
for the
28th
Sunday of Ordinary Time
Oct.
13, 2024
Creed
St.
Francis Xavier, Bronx
Our
Lady of the Assumption, Bronx
4th
in a series of homilies on the Nicene Creed
“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life” (Nicene Creed).
After reflecting
upon God the Father and God the Son, we come to the 3d Person of the Holy
Trinity. One writer tells us that the
Holy Spirit is “the effective presence and power of God among humans.”[1]
(p. 158)
As it
did with the Son, our profession of Christian faith speaks 1st of the Holy
Spirit in himself, then of what the Spirit does for us. Today I’ll treat mostly of the Spirit in
himself, lest I go on as long as I did when I preached about God the Son’s
relationship with us.
The
Creed states that the Spirit is “the Lord,” i.e., he’s God. Immediately, it calls him “the giver of
life.” Only God can give life. The Spirit is a creative power, which we see
in the opening lines of the book of Genesis:
“In the beginning, when God created the heavens and the earth, … a
mighty wind swept over the waters” (Gen 1:1-2).
And God began to create.
The
Hebrew word for “wind,” ruah, and the Greek word, pneuma, can
also be translated as “breath” or as “spirit.”
In fact, some translations say, “God’s spirit hovered over the water”
(JB; cf. RSV and NIV). We could say that
the breath of God or the divine spirit was moving over the waters as God began
to create.
That’s
the 1st version of creation, in Genesis ch. 1.
In the 2d version, Genesis ch. 2, “The Lord God formed man out of the
clay of the ground and blew into his nostrils the breath of life, and so man
became a living being” (2:7).
In
both creation stories, the Spirit is “the giver of life.”
We
know, too, that the Spirit enabled the Virgin Mary to conceive Jesus; in this,
also, he’s the giver of life, for Jesus Christ is our life and salvation.
The
Creed tells us that the Spirit “proceeds from the Father and the Son.” The love between God the Father and God the
Son is so personal that it’s a 3d divine Person. The Spirit is the living bond of unity
between Father and Son. This 3d Person
also is “Lord,” as much to be adored as the Father and the Son. A weak comparison is a child, the living and
personal expression of the love between a man and a woman.
Now
the Creed comes to the Holy Spirit and us:
he “has spoken thru the prophets.”
God communicates with the human race by inspiring—breathing into, if you
will—particular men and women to proclaim his word, people we call
prophets. E.g., Isaiah announces, “The
Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord … has sent me to bring glad
tidings to the lowly” (61:2)—words that Jesus cites with reference to his own
public ministry (Luke 4:18).
Thus
God sent to his people Moses, Miriam, Deborah, Elijah, Jeremiah, and many other
prophets. He also inspired the people who
composed our sacred writings, the Bible, both the Old Testament and the New
Testament. St. Peter writes in his 2d
Letter, “No prophecy ever came thru human will; but rather, human beings moved
by the Holy Spirit spoke under the influence of God” (1:21).
Further,
the Holy Spirit guides God’s people—the Jewish people and the Catholic
Church—to discern which writings are inspired, to select those writings that
belong to the sacred Scriptures, like the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John but not the gospel of Thomas or the early gospel of James; like the
letters of Paul, James, Peter, and John but not the letters of Barnabas or St.
Ignatius of Antioch and many others—no matter how interesting or edifying they
may be.
In
short, the Holy Spirit speaks thru prophets and speaks thru the leaders of
God’s people when they identify the authentic works of the Spirit.
This
is our faith. This is the faith of the
Church. We are proud to profess it in
Christ Jesus our Lord.
[1] Luke Timothy Johnson, The
Creed: What Christians Believe and Why It Matters (New York: Doubleday,
2003), p. 158.
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